Christian conservatives demand ‘Folau clause’ in religious discrimination bill

The power of employers to punish people who make potentially offensive religious statements outside work hours is emerging as a deal-breaker for Christian conservatives.

Australian Christian Lobby managing director Martyn Iles is calling for protections for religious employees. Picture: AAP

The power of employers to punish people who make potentially offensive religious statements outside work hours is emerging as a deal-breaker for Christian conservatives in the lead-up to the Morrison government unveiling the final version of a religious discrimination bill.

Australian Christian Lobby managing director Martyn Iles is calling on Attorney-General Michaelia Cash to retain protections for religious employees — known as the “Folau clause” — after she signalled in an interview with The Australian last week that the final bill will be a traditional, limited piece of anti-discrimination legislation.

But LGBTI rights advocates are opposed to the proposal — which they call a “no consequences for conduct” clause — and want the Attorney-General to ensure employers will be allowed to ensure homophobia will not be tolerated in workplaces.

Mr Iles told The Australian that keeping protections for workers outside employment hours was an issue that united religious leaders. He warned Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Senator Cash not to backtrack in the final draft.

Equality Australia chief executive Anna Brown. Picture: AAP

“The faith leaders are agreed that the Religious Discrimination Bill must provide meaningful protection for people of faith. In particular, that employers will not be able to police the religious speech of employees on the employees’ own time,” he said.

“Christian Porter’s first two drafts contained this protection. We expect that the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Attorney-General Cash will not walk back from this”.

The right of employees to make religious statements outside work in the last two drafts of the religious discrimination bill has been subsequently labelled the “Folau clause” after the rugby star Israel Folau, who was pushed out by Rugby Australia for an Instagram post claiming gay people go to hell.

Under the clause, businesses making more than $50m have to prove a person’s religious statement would cause financial harm to the company before taking action against the individual.

The clause has earned the ire of moderate Liberal MPs who say they will not support a religious discrimination bill that veers outside traditional anti-discrimination legislation and removes rights from gay people won in the 2017 introduction of same-sex marriage.

Equality Australia chief executive Anna Brown — the leader of the nation’s biggest LGBTI rights group — said she hoped Senator Cash’s comments last week were a sign the Morrison government was beginning to listen to the LGBTI community’s concerns.

Ms Brown — as well as opposing the Folau clause — also wants to see the next RDA draft to remove previous clauses allowing healthcare professional to refuse treatments to LGBTI people and overriding other forms of discrimination law.

“Previous drafts of the Religious Discrimination Bill contained dangerous and unorthodox provisions, winding back hard-fought rights for women, people with disability, LGBTIQ+ people, and people of minority faith,” she said.

“It’s heartening that the Attorney-General appears to be listening to the depth and breadth of concern about the bill among these communities, and is indicating she will introduce a standard piece of anti-discrimination legislation as recommended by the Ruddock review.”